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COP23 Commitments

Last week in Bonn, Germany, the latest round of United Nations Climate negotiations were hosted by Fiji. The talks brought together 197 Parties to progress the implementation of the Paris Agreement starting in 2020. The overarching themes of the negotiations included getting on track towards the Paris Agreement objectives and ultimately achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, something the Gold Standard has formally recognised in its new guidelines – Gold Standard for the Global Goals.

Key actions at COP23 included Syria announcing it would sign the Paris Agreement. The UK and Canada also lead a new initiative to phase out coal use for electricity generation. Traditional coal powered plants are significant contributors to climate change and impose localised negative pollution effects. Eradicating the use of coal is needed by 2030 for developed nations and no later than 2050 for developing countries in order to meet the critical limit of 1.5°C set in the Paris Agreement.

Fortunately, the plummeting cost of generating electricity from renewables makes clean growth a more viable option for many jurisdictions. This can be helped further by more finance being directed towards climate action. This gathered a lot of attention at COP23 with many country members announcing funds to support the poorest and most vulnerable countries negatively affected by climate change.

Overall, the conference made important progress on implementing the Paris agreement with the international community pledging to take more ambitious action to mitigate climate change. We look forward to the next round of talks, COP24, which takes place in December 2018 in Poland.